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Graham Dessert
1% C graham crackers rolled fine Mayme Morris. 1¾ t baking powder 1 cup nut meats, chopped fine 5 egg yolks Beat egg yolks, sugar and other ingredients and bake in two layers. Custard Filling for Same 1 T cornstarch 2/3 C sugar Little vanilla Pinch of salt 1 egg beaten 1 C milk Cook custard in double boiler and put between the layers. Fannie Grinnell.
A crumb-based torte of the kind that filled church cookbooks between about 1900 and 1930, printed here in the clipped shorthand those books used. Several quantities are incomplete, so read the whole thing before starting.
- The missing sugarThe method says to beat "egg yolks, sugar and other ingredients," but no sugar is listed for the layers. Comparable graham tortes of the period use about 1 cup of granulated sugar to 5 yolks; treat that as a reconstruction, not the author's figure.
- The crumb measure"1% C" is a garbled fraction; 1½ cups of finely rolled graham crackers is the most likely reading, though 1¼ or 1¾ cannot be ruled out. At 1½ cups that is roughly 5 oz, or about 11 whole crackers crushed. Rolling fine means a sandy crumb, not coarse pieces.
- Egg whitesFive yolks with no whites, no flour and no fat would give a very dense layer. Many tortes of this type fold stiffly beaten whites in last, and the whites may simply have dropped out of the printed list; this is a guess, not something the page supports.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, 350F, suits two thin crumb layers; they bake quickly, usually 20 to 25 minutes, and are done when the centre springs back.
- Pans"Two layers" implies two round cake pans; 8- or 9-inch would both suit this quantity, greased and lined. The batter is shallow in each -- this is a torte, not a butter cake, and the finished layers will be thin.
- The custardOne cup of milk with 1 tablespoon cornstarch and a whole egg sets soft. Cook it in the double boiler until it coats a spoon and the cornstarch taste is gone, then cool it fully before filling, or it will slump out of the layers.
- NutsThe recipe does not say which; walnuts or pecans would both suit. Chop them fine, as directed -- large pieces stop the fragile layers from slicing cleanly.
- Yield and servingOne 8-inch two-layer torte, eight to ten servings. It is best assembled a few hours ahead so the crumbs soften into the custard, and it wants refrigeration once filled.
Graham crackers took their name from Sylvester Graham, the 1830s temperance and dietary reformer who preached coarse unsifted wheat flour; by the time books of this kind were being compiled the cracker was a sweetened commercial biscuit with only a nominal connection to his austere program. Crumb tortes like this one appear widely in American community cookbooks in the early twentieth century, using a boxed product many kitchens already stocked and needing no flour, no butter and no creaming. The double attribution, layers from Mayme Morris and filling from Fannie Grinnell, is characteristic of subscription and fundraising cookbooks, where contributors were credited by name and a cake and a filling could be paired from two different women's cards.